Festival highlights dream of greenway on the river

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A long sought for greenway along Riverdale’s Hudson shore has been the inspiration for the annual Riverdale RiverFest, but boats, live music — headlined by Tom Chapin — and a new lecture series will be the focal point of this year’s eighth annual event on Sunday, June 11.

Sponsored by the Kingsbridge Riverdale Van Cortlandt Development Corp. and Friends of the Hudson River Greenway, it takes place at the College of Mount Saint Vincent from noon to 6 p.m.

RiverFest also includes 90-minute rides on three different boats: the A.J. Meerwald, the Sloop Clearwater and the Pioneer. This year’s event also introduces the RiverFest Lecture Series, three half-hour talks about the Hudson River from the lens of local historians, activists and environmentalists.

For Cliff Stanton, RiverFest’s lead organizer for the last three years, these activities are a way to unite Riverdalians and neighboring communities.

“The opportunity to recreate on the campus at the College of Mount Saint Vincent is just such a unique opportunity,” he said. 

His favorite part of RiverFest is the chance to relax by the waterfront on campus. 

“It’s breezy, it’s quiet, and it’s so relaxing,” Stanton said. “It gives me such pleasure.” 

This year also features a performance from Spuyten Duyvil, a Riverdale-based band whose name is inspired by early New York history. The group is an American roots band that infuses gospel, blues, and folk music into one unified sound.

Mark Miller, who leads the band with his wife Beth, said he’s been to RiverFest and enjoys it, but has never had a chance to perform with Spuyten Duyvil there until this year.

“It was a great, good fortune that the date and the stars aligned for this one,” he said.  

Miller hopes his excitement to perform will resonate with people who come to watch them play or are introduced to Spuyten Duyvil for the first time.

“Opportunities to bring people together and around some common experience, like listening to live music, I think are really important to us,” he said. “That’s why these kinds of shows are the kind of shows that we like to do.” 

For Stanton, planning RiverFest always is a huge undertaking, but even the obstacles leading up to the event make everything worth it.

“It’s such a labor of love, that the challenges — when you overcome them as a team — they don’t seem like challenges,” he said.  

Riverdale RiverFest, Tiffany Moustakas,

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